Honesty is costly!!

“Great to see you folks, I’m glad you could all make it today. The reason I wanted to gather all you media giants together today is really pretty simple.  See we seem to have a major piracy issue on our hands.  It really isn’t getting any better.  So I wanted to throw this idea at you and get your thoughts. 

~ Let’s increase the cost of production DVD’s. 

~We can start charging people basically the same price for digital copies and just give it to them a few weeks early.  Then we don’t even have to print or ship.

~We’ll add a new kind of disk called a Blu-ray and charge even more for that.  Then we can put them together and bump the cost even more for the combo. 

~I also want to delay DVD release for as long as possible and then when it does release only release it to certain vendors like Blockbuster.  Everybody else will have to wait an extra month.   

~We can also continue to pay “the talent” more and more every year into the tens of millions so ticket prices at the theater are astronomical.

With all those new and improved options out there,  I believe nobody will want to get their Smartphone out of their pocket and watch our movies for free any longer!”

I don’t believe that those words have ever been spoken.  Although to be honest I’m getting a little tired of the game here.  Let me tell you why. 

Due to the fact that my wife and I have young children and are both busy and broke we were able to get to the theater a grand total of 3 times in the last 15 months.  I am a self-proclaimed movie buff, or was at one time, so that is very sad and pathetic.  That means we have to wait until it comes out on DVD or Netflix.  In my area there are a few choices.  Blockbuster, Redbox and Netflix are really the big three.  Then there are of course online renting deals such as Apple.

Well I waited until Tuesday of this week for my movie to finally come out on DVD.  It must be said that it came out digitally a month before this week.  I went to the local Blockbuster to finally satisfy my cravings only to find out that blockbuster is closing its doors and no longer renting DVD’s.  So they don’t have it.  Redbox won’t get it for at least 3 or four weeks if I’m lucky.  That leaves me a little stranded (and as you can tell irritated).  I can buy the DVD for a minimum of 17.99 or rent it from Apple for 5.00 dollars!!  This is all after an insanely long DVD release time.  Considering the DVD was probably just about ready at the time the movie came to theaters. 

So I’m mad and it’s not even because I just want to see my movie.  I can truly live without it.  We don’t even subscribe to a TV service in my house for basically the same reason (and haven’t missed it for one second). I’m mad because we have crazy technology right at our fingertips.  I live just barely north of Hollywood, and there is currently no way for me to rent this new release movie without paying a premium.   I wonder if the studios ever take a look around and think before they make their anti-piracy plea’s.  By the way quite a bit of this happens in other countries where it’s not illegal so are we being charged for their loss overseas?

Nobody wants to bend a little bit and meet the public half way?  I understand that everybody needs to make a living but REALLY?  There’s nothing better we can come up with.  No better solution to this problem on either side of the coin. 

We’re being charged the same basic rate for a digital copy of something today that we got in a case a few years ago.  So where’s all the extra money for printing and shipping and so forth going?  What’s the incentive to buy digital?  I wonder what people’s limit on what they will spend for 2 hours of entertainment is? And how long they will wait.  A hundred years ago we could pass our books around and going to a state park was free. 

Now??  Not so much…